


Between

by Elisexyz



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Death Fix, Christmas Isn't Canon, F/M, Fix-It, Jessica Logan Redemption, Minor Wyatt/Jessica and Rufus/Jiya, Some Flynn/Jessica bonding of sorts, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-10-27 02:04:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17757701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elisexyz/pseuds/Elisexyz
Summary: Flynn travels back to Chinatown to save Rufus and he doesn't make it back. When Lucy, Jiya and Wyatt go back to the bunker, they find Rufus waiting for them, alive and well, and... Jessica. Who, apparently, has been staying with them since Chinatown.(Or: a movie fix-it in which both Flynn and Jessica make it out alive.)





	1. All my love

**Author's Note:**

> At first, this was meant to be a small one-shot that sort of respected canon events... then I found out that I dislike that movie too much to not change it all up, and it got out of hand LOL.  
>  I didn't rewrite the finale since the beginning because things went down pretty much the same way, but imagine that there was no very convenient announcement that the pregnancy is fake, there was no The Journal Is Now A Lyatt Thing plot (future Lucy and future Wyatt pretty much just dropped the upgraded Lifeboat and said "Get your asses back to Chinatown"), and Flynn didn't suddenly become a Lyatt fangirl who is in the business of telling Lucy whom she should be sleeping with.  
>  As far as the events go, they still go on mission in 1848, and they discuss going back to change things and save Rufus (but this time not by murdering poor Jessica). Flynn still decides that he's the best candidate to risk this, and although I've kept his letter I have pretty much chopped off everything that sounded too much like Lyatt fanservice to me.  
>  Okay, I think this is all... enjoy!

“To scout the _mill_ ,” Wyatt repeats, for what must be the millionth time. He’s pacing around like a caged animal, shooting annoyed looks at the horizon every two seconds, as if hoping that Flynn will just appear faster if he keeps looking.

“Maybe something happened,” Jiya suggests, her fingers drumming against the Lifeboat, her tone conciliatory. “He wouldn’t just bail on us to move permanently to 1848, and the sleeper is already taken care of—”

“Oh, I sure _hope_ something happened,” Wyatt mutters, exhaling loudly in annoyance, his arms crossed tightly as he checks once again if anyone is coming.

Lucy is beginning to get annoyed by him: she agrees with Jiya, if Flynn still hasn’t come back something must have happened, and who is it that let him ride ahead in the first place? Right, Wyatt.

And his complaints are giving her an headache.

And he has been uncomfortably _staring_ at her the whole trip. It’s suffocating.

(He told her he loves her, and she hates him for giving her something that should make her so _happy_ only after weeks and weeks of heartache, only after Jessica hung him out to dry.)

She hides her hands in her pockets with a small sigh, and it’s then that her fingers touch a piece of paper that definitely wasn’t there before.

Frowning, she gets it out, and her stomach twists on itself as soon as she recognizes Flynn’s handwriting. A mysterious message in her pocket, Flynn nowhere to be seen— she doesn’t like this already.

_My dear Lucy, if you're reading this, I guess I didn't make it back—_

Back? Back from _where_?

_—Well, maybe that's for the best, when you think about what I've done in the past. If anyone's expendable on this team, it's me. Tell Rufus he can thank me later—_

Shit. They were talking about going back, altering the timeline in Chinatown to make sure that Emma wouldn’t shoot Rufus, now that they know it is possible, even though it doesn’t come without risks. He argued that sending too many people would be stupid, that it would take firepower away from the fight against Rittenhouse.

So he went alone. Without saying anything to anybody. Of course he did.

_—I regret the pain I caused you, Lucy, and maybe by doing this, I can find a small way to make things right, so you can have the future you deserve—_

He has been taking care of her pretty much since when that whole mess with Wyatt started, what the hell is he even _talking_ about? Whatever he had to make up for, she’s pretty sure he was doing a great job at fixing it even without going on a suicidal mission.

 _—I hope you get everything you want in life. I hope you can be happy_ —

And _she_ hopes he got a papercut writing this _bullshit_.

_—And one day, I hope you get to have a family of your own. And I hope you get your sister back—_

Wyatt is still complaining. Lucy raises her burning eyes from the letter for a moment, contemplating calling for him or at least telling him to shut the hell _up_ , but she doesn’t find the voice to do it.

She isn’t sure if what’s blocking her is a big ball of _anger_ stuck in her chest or if it’s the feeling of the ground crushing under her feet.

 _—There are some things in the journal, I never could figure them out. But it's led us this far. One good thing in my life, the one thing that I couldn't hate after I lost my family_ —

A sob catches in her throat, and she grips the letter tighter, making it crumble between her fingers.

 _—Never give up trying to save the world from Rittenhouse, and then maybe you can save the ones you love_ —

And what about him? Is he not included in that assessment?

_—Well, I guess I'll see you Christmas Eve, 2014. You know the place._

_All my love,_

_Flynn._

“Wyatt,” she calls, her voice coming out thin and strangled, certainly not loud enough to get his attention while he’s busy thinking out loud about where exactly he could go look for Flynn, since he’s tired of waiting around.

Jiya, though, hears her, and she walks a little closer, frowning questioningly at her.

“— _or_ we could just leave him here, come back later, when he has decided to _grace_ us with his—”

“Wyatt!” Lucy says, this time loudly enough that he immediately turns around, startled.

“I wasn’t serious—” he assures, defensively, but she shakes her head, tears pushing behind her eyes and a very annoying lump in her throat.

“What’s wrong?” Jiya asks, just as Wyatt seems to start catching on too, walking closer and looking at her with concern.

“I don’t think he’s around here,” is the best that she can manage, her voice shaking a little. Of course, that only earns her two quizzical looks. She takes a deep breath, holding up the letter. “He left a message, said he went back to—to save Rufus. It was in case he didn’t—” She trails off, just as realization gradually appears on Wyatt and Jiya’s faces.

“What— is he crazy?!” Wyatt finally says, after a pause. He seems to be about to reach for the letter, but Lucy automatically snatches her hand away, her fingers closing tighter around the paper.

 _I hope you can be happy_.

“It just says that,” she says, quietly. “Nothing more.”

 _All my love_ —

“The Lifeboat is here,” Jiya comments, a little absent-mindedly, staring at it with wide eyes.

 _And he’s not_ , she doesn’t say, but it hangs in the air nonetheless.

Lucy doesn’t really take part to the discussion that follows: she stashes the letter into her pocket, her fingers playing with it as the words keep dancing in front of her eyes like she never put it away, and she can only think of how _stupid_ she was.

She should have _guessed_ it, she should have understood that something wasn’t right in the exact moment he started pointing out how sending everyone back posed too much of a risk – _I didn’t make it back, maybe that’s for the best_ –, she should have _talked_ to him, make him spit out this stupid idea of his—

She can’t even remember what the last thing that he told her was.

Probably something completely ordinary and stupid, because she hadn’t suspected a damn _thing_ – _All my love, Flynn_ –, when she _should_ have. But who is she kidding: she’s been so wrapped up in her own problems since Jessica came back and everything started going to shit, that it’s a miracle that she even notices where she’s going half of the time.

He was the one to always notice when something was up with _her_ , she doesn’t think she ever bothered to return the favour, and maybe if she had—

 _If anyone’s expendable on this team, it’s me_.

“Lucy? Is that— is that okay for you?” Jiya asks, tentatively, touching her arm to get her attention.

Lucy blinks at her, vaguely aware that they were discussing going back to the bunker, making sure that Flynn managed to save Rufus before discussing if there’s something that they can do for him.

She shrugs, and that seems to be enough of an agreement.

Jiya is obviously trying not to look too _hopeful_ , maybe out of respect, but Lucy can’t even begin to blame her for the feeling: Rufus might be back. They might come back to him alive and whole, like nothing happened, and the thought makes her want to smile too – except her eyes keep stinging and her stomach is twisted on itself; she just wishes that her brain would make up its mind already.

She’s distracted enough that when Wyatt leans forward to strap her in she barely notices until it’s too late, and even then she doesn’t feel like highlighting that she’s perfectly capable of handling it on her own.

He gives her a concerned look.

“You okay?” he asks, quietly, as Jiya gets the machine started.

That’s such a stupid question she almost wants to laugh. She doesn’t even think that she remembers what being okay feels like.

“Fine,” she replies, curtly.

Wyatt just nods, leaning back against his seat and looking like he wants to say something but doesn’t know what.

 

Jiya is the first one out of the Lifeboat.

Lucy hangs back, letting Wyatt go before her too, and the first thing that she hears is Denise’s very loud complaint: “What the hell did you guys jump _for_ , are you crazy?!”

There isn’t much of an explanation given, because Rufus appears only moments later, and Jiya doesn’t waste any time flying into his arms, enveloping him in a very enthusiastic hug.

Rufus looks vaguely confused and a bit worried.

“You scared me half to death,” he complains, looking between Lucy and Wyatt in search of some kind of explanation for she doesn’t even know what, and it isn’t _funny_ , not at all, but Lucy laughs nonetheless, she and Wyatt stepping forward to join the hug.

Her laugh turns to quiet sobbing, and she tunes out Rufus’ questions, too busy gripping his shirt tightly and thinking that he’s _okay_ , Flynn did it, he’s _alive_ — and now they are back to where they started, with one of them left behind.

Can they ever fix something without breaking anything else in its place?

As soon as they all part, Lucy smiling as she wipes away the tears and Rufus still giving them all pretty damn confused looks, Denise steps closer, frowning.

“Guys, where’s Flynn?”

Lucy’s stomach instantly sinks to her knees, and she adverts her eyes, her hand automatically going to her pocket and no intention of answering the question.

“Uh, it’s—it’s a little complicated—” Wyatt begins, but he’s interrupted.

“What the hell is _she_ doing here?!” Jiya demands, her voice abnormally loud. She’s pointing behind Rufus, where Lucy notices Jessica hanging back, dressed in casual clothes just like back when she used to live in the bunker with all of them and they had no idea who she _was_.

“Jess?” Wyatt calls, his mouth hanging open at the sight.

“She’s been here since Chinatown,” Rufus says, carefully, his hands rubbing Jiya’s shoulders as if to calm her down. It doesn’t seem to be working all too well: she’s fuming, Lucy wouldn’t put it past her to grab Wyatt’s gun and start firing, judging by her expression.

Lucy isn’t sure about what she’s feeling, but it certainly isn’t joy nor relief.

“She has?” Wyatt asks, and his hopeful tone is pretty hard to miss, just like the way his lips start twitching as if to push him to smile. Lucy only feels _tired_ at the sight.

“Not in _our_ timeline,” Jiya hisses.

Jessica keeps her distance, making no move to defend herself or acknowledge the hostility – she’d better not, it’s well deserved after all.

“Can someone _please_ explain what’s going on here?” Denise demands, catching everybody’s attention. “Is there a _reason_ why you jumped without even asking for anybody’s permission? And we’re still missing a team member here, where did you leave him this time?”

Wyatt fortunately manages to tear his eyes away from Jessica long enough to look at Lucy’s face and guess that she has exactly zero intention of doing the explaining. Or better, she doesn’t think she can. She’s pretty sure that if she opened her mouth she’d start _screaming_.

He clears his throat. “Uh, yeah, okay, in our timeline— Chinatown was a bit of a disaster,” Wyatt begins, scratching the back of his head. “We, uh— Rufus died,” he says, quickly, probably only to get it out of the way. “And we went back, and we got a visit from me and Lucy from the future that gave us a new time machine and told us to travel on our own timeline—”

“That’s a thing now?” Rufus asks, puzzled and vaguely curious.

Wyatt shrugs. “Only for a short time, gets fatal if you stay too long, apparently.” A pause. “We, uh— the Mothership jumped—”

“But Emma is dead,” Denise interferes. “The Mothership got stranded in 1888.”

Wyatt frowns. “Not in our timeline. Rittenhouse jumped to 1848.”

“If they were in the past with you while history changed, that means that there’s probably an Emma existing outside of time and therefore still alive, and that Rittenhouse has the Mothership again,” Mason comments.

“Oh, fantastic,” Rufus mutters. “Back to this, then. And I was beginning to hope that we’d get to go back home soon—”

“You were saying, Wyatt?” Denise intervenes, gesturing for Wyatt to continue.

“Uh, yeah,” he says, nervously. “In 1848 we were discussing going back, changing things to—to get Rufus back— Flynn decided to do things his way and he went back on his own, used the autopilot I guess—” He clears his throat, glancing at Lucy and then at the ground before concluding: “He didn’t make it back.”

Denise’s face hardens, whereas Rufus only gapes, looking alternately between them as if waiting for some extra explanation or a correction. When it gets clear that nobody is going to say anything else, his eyes drop to the ground.

“Oh,” he only mumbles.

“But he sent back the Lifeboat,” Jiya intervenes. “We were hoping that we could figure out what happened, see if we can help him without compromising Rufus—”

“I know what happened,” Jessica intervenes, taking a few steps forward.

Lucy’s breath catches in her throat, hope creeping up under her skin without her permission.

“How?” Wyatt asks, confused.

Jessica shrugs. “I was there,” she says, simply. “I can help you get him back.”


	2. Chinatown, 1888

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you (again) for all your kind comments in the first chapter and for all the kudos! I hope you'll enjoy this one as well.

This probably isn’t the smartest plan he’s ever come up with.

In his defence, though, this trip was a little time sensitive: 1888 isn’t going anywhere, but who knows when he’ll have another chance to steal the Lifeboat like that, and there’s a good chance that if he hadn’t done this now the others would have had the time to enact some stupidly risky plan involving four idiots travelling back on their own timeline for no other reason other than wanting to be _noble_.

The most logical thing to do is sending just one idiot, really.

He did think about bringing Wyatt along, because an extra gun never hurts, especially when his right shoulder is still all messed up, but he didn’t like the idea of potentially leaving Lucy and Jiya alone in 1848, and if Wyatt has a kid on the way, Garcia isn’t going to be the son of a bitch responsible for orphaning them.

Which is why he didn’t have much of a choice.

He manages to sneak up on Emma, just in time to notice that she’s taking aim at what she can only assume is Rufus.

Without much time to think, he fires, only his head chooses that exact moment to send a sudden flash of pain cutting through his skull: he still manages to take decent aim, he believes, but it’s no headshot.

Still, when he manages to focus his eyes on Emma he sees her on the ground, and although the urge to fire again and again until she’s stopped moving is awfully strong, he decides to turn right on his heels to optimize his chances at getting back to the Lifeboat: if he doesn’t get it back, the others will have to get creative to find a way out of 1848, and he’d rather avoid them attempting to steal the Mothership just because he wanted to do a thorough job with Emma. What matters is that he stopped her from killing Rufus, that was the goal.

He was kind of hoping that Jessica would stay behind to try and save Emma’s life, or that she’d be out of the picture for whatever reason – because sometimes he allows himself to be naïve enough to hope that the universe won’t make things particularly hard for himfor a change –, but a shot and a burning pain in his leg makes him lose his footing, putting a stop to his escape.

He’s quick to pull himself back on his feet, trying to relegate the pain to the back of his mind, using a wall for support while his other hand rises the gun, and upon turning around he finds Jessica with her weapon pointed right at his head and a stone-cold expression on her face.

“Put it down,” she orders, slowly.

He promised Wyatt not to shoot the possibly pregnant lady, and if it were up to him he’d avoid it, but this is self-defence, and in his list of priorities making sure that his team doesn’t get stuck in the past ranks just a little bit higher than keeping his word on this.

“I don’t think so,” he says, drily, but he doesn’t make any move to attack. He tries his best to mask his flinch when he feels another stab of pain through his head and his ears start ringing insistently, and he can’t tell if Jessica noticed.

What he’s sure of is that she hasn’t shot him in the face yet.

Call him crazy, but in his experience that’s a pretty decent sign that there might be room to solve this without anybody getting murdered – and in this case, he’s pretty worried that the murdered one would be him, because he’s bleeding like crazy, he’s got a hole in his shoulder, and his brain is freaking out because of this little trip, so there’s a good chance that he won’t be as fast or precise as her.

“Look,” he tries, and if it works he might just start believing in miracles. “You can shoot me if you like, but I need to bring the Lifeboat back to 1848, or they’ll all be stuck there. Wyatt included, just in case you give a damn.”

And her giving a damn is pretty much what he’s counting on here.

Sure enough, something shifts in Jessica’s expression, if only for a moment. “What are you talking about?” she finally asks. “They are all here.”

“I’m traveling on my own timeline,” he explains. “They need the Lifeboat that _I_ came here with.”

The sudden headaches are getting sharper and more frequent. Not a good sign, but he can still hold out for a while, he believes. If she’d just let him _go_ already—

“That’s impossible, you can’t travel—”

“Yeah, well, I did, it just hurts like a bitch,” he snaps. “You’ve just seen me back there with the others, two of me make much more sense than one me somehow running all the way back here and coming up behind you. Just _think_ , that would be helpful.”

Jessica glares at him, probably not particularly fond of his tone, but he has no idea how much time he has left, and between his leg and his head it’s a miracle that he isn’t cursing six ways from Sunday, so he’s a little snappy, sue him.

Jessica gives him a strange look before quickly glancing back. She looks conflicted for a moment or two, then she slowly puts the gun down.

“Good call,” he comments, drily, before bracing himself for the rest of the way back. He just needs to get his ass back to the Lifeboat, put the First Aid kit to good use so he doesn’t bleed to death, and if he can’t walk he’ll just have to wait for the others, so they can all go back to the present and he can swallow a bottle or two of painkillers.

He has only moved a few feet forward – with only mild internal cursing, even –, when Jessica comes up behind him. For a moment, he assumes that she changed her mind and he’s about to just try and shoot her before she takes him out, but instead she holsters her gun and unceremoniously slides his arm around her shoulders, silently offering to help him walk back.

At his pretty damn sceptical expression, she glares.

“What?” she snaps. “You said you need to get to the Lifeboat, you weren’t going to get anywhere like that.”

He snorts.

“Your ability to pick a side and stick to it is admirable,” he comments, in the most sarcastic tone he can manage while trying not to hiss in pain.

“Real smart, talking shit about the woman who’s saving your ass,” she shoots back. “And whose help you just _asked_ for.”

“I didn’t ask for anything, I just pointed out that the smart thing to do would be not shooting me.”

“That counts as asking me not to shoot you.”

“Arguably.”

“And what exactly makes you think you’re in a position to judge my moral character anyway?”

He probably would have had something to retort to that, but he suddenly can’t hear anything over his ringing ears, and for a moment he’s sure that someone is attempting a lobotomy on him or something.

When he blinks back into reality, Jessica is trying to get his attention.

“Hey,” she’s calling, insistently. They’ve stopped moving. “Still with me?”

“Yes, let’s just go. Quickly,” he replies, the words coming out a little rushed. It would have been real nice if Lucy and Wyatt from the future had given them some clear guidelines on how to do this.

Something like ‘ _this_ is how long you can survive without too much pain, _this_ is the horrible-pain timespan, and after _this_ long you’re dead meat’.

But obviously they were annoyingly vague, and he finds it more than a little stressing that he has no idea whether he can make this work or not. He’ll just have to pray that he doesn’t drop dead too soon.

When they see the Lifeboat in front of them, for a moment he thinks that they’ve made it just fine: he’s still breathing, he can still think straight, which he supposes means that his brain isn’t that fried yet, Rufus is supposedly alive, Emma is hopefully very dead—

His moment of euphoria gets rudely interrupted by Emma shooting at them, a gaping hole in her shoulder and apparently no intention of not being an horrible pain in his ass for once in her life.

“Get on that thing,” Jessica orders, drawing out her gun. “I’ll cover you.”

She dives straight for cover, shooting at Emma so that she has to hide too, and Garcia just puts his best titanic effort into rushing to the Lifeboat and getting in.

He tunes out the shots going off behind him, only flinching when a bullet hits the Lifeboat – let’s just hope that the damn thing is not too fragile to take a bullet or two –, and eventually he manages to get in, his ears ringing insistently as he tries to focus on the numbers so he can set the coordinates.

He blinks a couple of times until his vision clears, and he quickly types the destination. He glances back to the fight, and he can’t help wondering how many bullets Jessica has left and how many _Emma_ has, and what happens if Emma takes a lucky shot—

He doesn’t have much time to think, so the only thing that he manages is cursing his conscience for still being there – seriously, after all those murders you’d think that he’d have smoked the damn thing out, but apparently _not_ –, then he just launches the Lifeboat and he jumps right off before it can take him away.

He doesn’t manage a graceful landing, but he’s quickly up to his knees, taking the best shot he can manage with his vision blurring around the edges and his head feeling lighter than normal.

He’s pretty sure he misses by a mile, but Emma’s attention is suddenly on him, and that’s enough for Jessica to get an headshot in.

After that, silence falls between them, and Garcia is half expecting for _something_ to happen, because that definitely feels like one of those moments of calm that are meant to delude you into thinking that it’s over, when in fact it’s not, and leave you there reprimanding yourself for thinking that it’d be so easy.

But Emma doesn’t get up, and Jessica doesn’t move either, staring at her with wide eyes and her mouth slightly open, her gun still mid-air.

“Thanks,” he gets out, mostly to fill the silence and get time moving again.

It works: Jessica turns towards him, still looking like she hasn’t really registered what just happened, and she finally snaps out of it. She puts the gun away before moving towards him, pulling him up and half-carrying him away so that he can sit with his back against the nearest wall.

“What the hell did you do that for,” she mutters, trying to take a look at his leg.

“They needed the Lifeboat.”

She shoots him an unamused look, to which he snorts.

“Look, you should go look for the others,” he finally says. Jessica looks up to him, raising her eyebrows questioningly. “You don’t have a pilot for the Mothership anymore, they can take you back to the present. Unless you really like 1888.”

She’s of no use to him here, and, really, you don’t want to raise a child as a single woman in the nineteenth century.

“I doubt they’d welcome me with open arms,” she points out, making an improvised bandage out of a piece of her dress.

He scoffs. “Wyatt will.”

She makes a sceptical face. Garcia really hates having to play matchmaker here.

“The guy was asking me not to shoot you right in the _middle_ of our firefight,” he points out, rolling his eyes. “Trust me, you go there saying that you changed your mind and killed Emma, he will _literally_ welcome you with open arms.”

Jessica stares at him for a few moments, clearly unsure, but in the end she clenches her jaw, nodding briefly. “Alright, whatever— let’s go.”

She tries to help him up, but he pushes her away. “I didn’t say I was coming along.”

She raises her eyebrows. “You want me to leave you here to bleed out?”

“I’m half-way to the grave anyway,” he points out, shrugging. “Walking on your own timeline has side effects, and me going with you wouldn’t help.”

“Oh.”

There’s a moment of silence so awkward that it’s painful, and he briefly considers just shooting himself in the face to get out of it – and to avoid the slow death waiting for him; that probably wouldn’t be such a bad idea, now that he thinks about it.

“What are you still doing here?” he finally asks, a little more sharply than intended.

She seems to snap out of it. “Yeah—yeah, okay, I’m—I’m going,” she mutters, quickly scrambling to stand up. He raises his eyebrows at her as she hesitates. “Thank you,” she finally says, only getting a nod in return before she turns her back on him and goes.

He takes a deep breath, which ends in the stab of pain in his head number a million and one, closing his eyes for a moment as he leans back against the wall.

He could have made it back, and he chose not to out of decency towards _Jessica Logan_. That’s almost worth a laugh.

He’s only sorry that, in the end, he’s yet another person who promised Lucy he wouldn’t leave, and then did anyway.


	3. End of the tunnel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, it's been an hellish couple of weeks. Also, fair warning: not much happens in this chapter, but I needed it to move to the next one.   
> Thank you for all the support, I hope you'll enjoy this <3

“He’s why I ended up coming to you guys,” Jessica explains, everyone else pretty much surrounding her.

“Is he?” Denise echoes, with blatant scepticism. “That’s weird, because you didn’t mention him when you told me what you swore up and down was the truth.”

“That’s because it would have made no sense to you back then,” Jessica replies, crossing her arms tightly and offering a little shrug. Wyatt is hovering around her, staring at her like she’s some kind of _miracle_ , and Lucy is stupid enough that she manages to feel a little disappointed. Not surprised, not really, just—just disappointed.

“Was any of what you said true?” Denise insists, her face a mask of cold, controlled anger that makes Lucy shudder.

“ _Everything_ was true,” Jessica stresses. “I just left out how Flynn was involved, that’s all.”

“What happened to him, then?” Lucy intervenes, her voice surprisingly steady. She couldn’t care less about what Jessica said or didn’t say to justify yet another change of loyalties, she only wants to know how the hell they can fix this mess and bring things back to the way they should be.

Right now, she’s surrounded by family, yet she’s feeling impossibly alone.

Jessica turns to her, her expression irritatingly benevolent. She’s always been friendly with her, back when she still lived in the bunker. Lucy now supposes that it was a manipulation, because being manipulative as hell seems to be a requirement to be admitted into Rittenhouse, but back then a part of her pettily wished to be given a reason to dislike her.

“He shot Emma,” Jessica explains, gently. “She sent me after him, and he explained— he explained that he was traveling on his own timeline to save Rufus, and that he had to get back to the Lifeboat or Wyatt and the rest of you would be stuck in 1848.”

“So?” Lucy prompts, because none of this explains anything yet.

Jessica shrugs. “So I helped him back to the Lifeboat.”

“Because you are _such_ a giver, aren’t you?” Jiya intervenes, bitterly. She’s standing as far away from Jessica as she possibly can, Rufus wrapped around her like a blanket. Lucy suddenly feels really cold.

Jessica only acknowledges the comment with a sad look, and Wyatt has the audacity of looking a little irritated by it, even if he quickly regains composure.

“I was planning on telling Emma that he escaped or something, but she followed us and started shooting,” Jessica continues. “So I covered for him while he got on the Lifeboat. He could have made it back, he just chose not to leave me behind in a firefight,” she concludes, looking more than a little apologetic.

A prominent part of Lucy is pointing out that it isn’t really Jessica’s fault, Flynn can make his own decisions and it isn’t at all surprising that his judgement would be so _shitty_. Yet, another, very loud, part of her is kicking and screaming about how stupid and unfair that is, that Jessica is here and he isn’t. That Wyatt keeps getting her back over and over again, and Lucy is always alone: whatever comfort she finds always gets taken away, and it isn’t _fair_.

She does her best to silence it.

“He jumped off before the Lifeboat launched, and he took a shot at Emma,” Jessica explains, to which Denise looks more than a little irritated.

“So _he_ killed her,” she comments.

“No, I did,” Jessica corrects, quietly. “He provided the distraction.” She looks more than a little upset by what she’s saying, although her reaction is contained, and for a second Lucy feels a bit sorry for her – she does know something about conflicting emotions, after all.

Jessica clears her throat. “So, he—he told me to find you guys to get home, since the Mothership had no pilot anymore,” she continues, mostly looking at the ground while she talks. “To—to leave him there.”

“And you _did_?” Lucy bursts out, before she can stop herself, let alone think it over for more than a minute.

Jessica looks up to her, once again sporting a very apologetic expression that almost makes Lucy feel guilty for the outburst. It would, probably, except she’s so angry she isn’t really seeing straight.

She _left_ him there.

_If anyone’s expendable on this team, it’s me_.

“He told me he was dying because he crossed his own timeline,” Jessica argues, a little defensively. “And that bringing him with me wouldn’t help. So I thought— I guess I imagined it’d help more if there was someone here knowing what happened, alright?”

Lucy knows she’s right. She _knows_.

She still can’t help the overwhelming anger she feels, because he died alone stranded in 1888 and thinking that no one would really _care_ , that it was an acceptable sacrifice – it isn’t, nor for her; she can’t accept losing anybody else, least of all him, and fuck Flynn for assuming otherwise.

“Well, we can simply pick him up, right?” Rufus intervenes, turning to Mason. “I mean, if you can travel back to your own timeline, we just have to let him save me, grab him, bring him here. Right?”

Mason shrugs. “Sounds doable to me.”

Lucy’s heart starts racing, her throat closing up in anticipation. It _does_ sound doable. More than that, it actually sounds _easy_.

(Is she supposed to worry that there will be a catch hidden somewhere?)

“Okay, so we do this?” Wyatt quickly asks, glancing at Denise, who nods thoughtfully.

“Assuming that Jessica is telling the truth,” she begins, with a pointed look at her. “Then yes, that should work. We need an empty seat for Flynn, which leaves three. Wyatt, you go. I guess Jessica should go too, she’s the only one who has any details.”

That doesn’t get many benevolent reactions, only Wyatt offers a small smile to his wife.

Lucy doesn’t really care about who comes, so long as she can tag along too. “I want the last seat,” she states, her tone leaving no room for argument.

Denise seems a little dubious, but she isn’t the one who ends up objecting.

“I think sending me would be a better idea,” Jiya intervenes. Rufus’ eyes widen, but Jiya doesn’t seem to notice. “No offence, Lucy.”

“Since when is time traveling without the historian a good idea?” Lucy argues, because _no_ , she won’t be left behind. She wants to be there, make sure that they do everything they can possibly do to bring him back, show him that she very much _cares_ if he takes himself out of the picture— and, last but not least, she definitely won’t be stuck in the present while history is unpredictably changing. There’s no way.

“This requires more brawn than brains,” Jiya points out. “And I’ve picked up on a few things during the last three years. Which reminds me, I’m also the expert about that place anyway. If we get delayed for any reason, I can navigate it.”

She makes a good point. Lucy’s brain desperately struggles to find a rebuttal, but the more she tries to _think_ the emptier she comes up.

“Jiya,” Rufus says, gently. “You having spent so much time there is precisely why we wouldn’t ask you to go back.”

“No one’s asking, I’m offering,” Jiya replies, confidently. “Actually, I’m _saying_ I will.”

“Jiya’s right,” Denise intervenes. “She goes. Sorry, Lucy.”

Lucy kinda wants to cry. “But—” she tries to protest, which only makes her look like an idiot, because she has nothing to say. She closes her mouth, nodding curtly, her eyes on the ground and her arms wrapped around herself.

They decide that there’s no need to change or steal clothes, they’ll be in and out anyway, if everything goes as it should. Before launching, Wyatt and Jessica retire in a corner to talk for a moment, while Rufus seemingly tries to get Jiya to rethink going back – Lucy half-heartedly hopes that he’ll succeed, although she knows he won’t.

Denise brings an extra gun to Wyatt, one to Jiya and none to Jessica, mostly for Jiya’s peace of mind, probably. She doesn’t agree.

“Just give her one,” Jiya says, gesturing briefly to Jessica. “I know how to defend myself, and if she turns on us I’ll just blow off her kneecaps.”

“I won’t,” Jessica assures, although it falls on deaf ears.

Lucy stares as they get ready to hop onto the Lifeboat, her chest aching with how much she wants – needs – to tag along too. She hates staying behind, what is she even supposed to do during the wait? And how can she stay calm when if something changed she wouldn’t even _know_?

“We’ll get him back,” Jiya assures, coming up to her after she’s said her goodbye to Rufus. “I only offered to go because I _know_ that I can help pulling it off, okay?” she adds, smiling encouragingly. “He saved Rufus, and now we’re saving him, it’s a promise.”

Lucy nods, swallowing heavily.

“Just—” she says, her voice coming out hoarse. “Just tell him that I’ll give him an earful on stupid heroics as soon as he’s back, alright?”

Jiya grins. “Consider it done.”

As the Lifeboat disappears in front of her and Lucy’s stomach does a double backflip, Denise scoots closer to her, wrapping her arm around her shoulders to offer comfort.

She doesn’t say anything, and Lucy only leans on the touch.


	4. Lifesaver

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the support, I hope you'll enjoy this chapter too <3

Jiya barely looks at her. If she does, it’s with bitter anger and resentment.

Jessica knows perfectly well that she has no right to be hurt by it, but it stings nonetheless. She wishes she would _listen_ , but even with the Jiya from the timeline in which Rufus never died she didn’t have much luck – the most she got out of her was some well-deserved shouting.

Jessica has kind of given up on making things right with her, for now. Maybe someday.

Wyatt, on the other hand, does nothing _but_ looking at her.

He knows that expression: he’s _happy_ to have her back, he’s just trying to tone it down, and it tears her to pieces how he can still be glad to have her around after everything.

“It’s around that corner,” Jessica instructs, pointing them in the right direction.

Wyatt nods at her, his Sergeant Logan expression on as he leads the way, and it feels a little weird to be on the field with him.

Jiya is last: she hasn’t turned her back on Jessica once since when they jumped off the Lifeboat.

They stand by the corner behind which is the Lifeboat, and Wyatt gestures for them to stay back as he leans against the wall and takes a quick peek.

“There’s no one yet,” he announces, his shoulders relaxing a little. “Just the Lifeboat.”

That’s unsurprising: Jessica didn’t remember the exact time when they got there, and she decided that a little early would be better than too late. She just hopes that they won’t have to wait too long, because the silence is already too tense for her liking. And to make it all worse, they start getting this annoying stabbing pain through their heads, every now and then, reminding them that they shouldn’t _be_ there.

“Couldn’t we catch up with him, cut it short?” Wyatt suggests.

“We can’t risk losing Rufus again,” Jiya immediately intervenes. “Let’s just wait.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re right,” Wyatt sighs, gently bumping his head against the wall, the gun still in his hands, just in case.

It’s a very silent wait.

Wyatt makes a couple of pointless comments, Jiya mostly says silent, Jessica desperately looks for something that feels appropriate to hold a decent conversation, but mostly she ends up answering her husband’s pointless statements and letting the silence drag out until he comes up with something else.

“I see them— uh, you,” Wyatt eventually says, retiring back behind the corner with an hint of a smile on his face. The _finally_ is unspoken, but Jessica wholeheartedly shares the sentiment, closing her eyes for a moment through a brief stab of pain.

“So, what now?” Wyatt asks then, turning to her.

“We wait for Emma to show up,” Jessica instructs. “We let the shoot-out work out the way it did—” Her stomach twists unpleasantly at the memory of her gun going off and Emma falling to the ground like a ton of bricks. She has been trying _not_ to think about it, mostly, and she has no idea what she feels about what she did. She doesn’t _want_ to know. Some things are best left buried in distractions upon distractions with other distractions piled on top of them – good thing that now she’s busy enough for it to work just fine.

And compartmentalizing is part of her job, after all. She can stash it away, no problem.

“Then Flynn is going to talk me into leaving,” she continues, taking a brief breath. “And _then_ we go get him.”

“Can’t we just go as soon as Emma is dead?” Jiya intervenes.

Jessica is more than a little startled at hearing her speak to her directly, but she’s quick to mask it. “I think we’d waste more time than if we wait,” she explains, her heart in her throat. Under Jiya’s gaze, she feels like she’s undertaking some kind of test, and she has the distinct feeling that she _isn’t_ going to pass it, no matter how much she wants to. “I think it’s best to let it play out, since it worked.”

Jiya nods, her expression neutral, then she goes back to pointedly not looking at her. Jessica’s stomach twists, and she turns back to Wyatt’s direction.

Soon enough, shots start ringing out, and Jessica tries really hard not to think about Emma, growing desperate enough that she starts trying to count backwards from three hundred. It doesn’t work all that well and she keeps losing count, but it’s something to do, at least.

“Alright, you are talking,” Wyatt announces, discreetly spying on them and putting away the gun.

As soon as he tells them that she’s gone, they finally get moving.

“Uh, look who’s here,” Flynn comments, when he notices them.

“You’re welcome,” Wyatt comments, absently, as he looks him over in an attempt to assess the damage. “How well can you walk?”

“I’d walk a whole lot better if _someone_ hadn’t shot me,” Flynn comments, shooting Jessica a pointed bitchy look.

Honestly, she’s so happy that she doesn’t have to stand in close proximity to Jiya and Wyatt while staying in awkward silence that she might just laugh.

“Well, you shot me too, and I’ve come here to save your ass, we are even,” she comments. She actually isn’t sure if that graze to her arm that she got in Chinatown was him or Wyatt, and even if it _was_ him it’s nothing compared to a real bullet hole in his leg, but still.

“I can argue that,” Flynn comments, lightly.

“You’ll have to do all the arguing you want as soon as we get you back to the bunker,” Jiya comments, smiling slightly at him before going back to looking around for any possible threats. “Lucy wants to kick your ass for pulling this. If I were you, I’d prepare my best set of puppy eyes.”

Flynn looks kind of amused and a little bit surprised at that.

“Alright, Jess, help me—” Wyatt grunts, wrapping Flynn’s left arm around his shoulders and getting ready to pull him up. Jessica hurries to his other side to do the same. “Jiya, you go ahead and make sure there are no Rittenhouse thugs waiting around the corner or something.”

Jiya nods curtly, as the two of them pull Flynn up: he does his best to help, thankfully, because she isn’t sure how efficiently they could pull this off if he were deadweight, but he clearly needs the support.

“Okay, a quick ride back to the present and we’ll get you fixed up,” Wyatt breaths out, looking straight ahead.

Flynn grunts something that could with a little creativity be considered an agreement, then he squeezes his eyes shut, letting out a small hiss of pain. He did that too while she was taking him to the Lifeboat, but it seems to last longer, and she finds it more than a little worrying.

Now she knows that it’s because of the time travel, and since _her_ headaches are beginning to get worse, she doesn’t want to think about what _his_ head must be like right now.

Maybe that’s why she feels the sudden urge to fill the silence as soon as he seems back with them.

“You know, you’d better not die, or you’ll force me and Wyatt to name our kid after you,” she says, jokingly. “And Garcia Logan sounds _dreadful_.”

Flynn squints at her, a little amused, whereas Wyatt just looks at her with wide, horrified eyes. “ _No_ ,” he stresses.

That gets a grin out of Flynn.

“Flynn Logan sounds nice though,” Jessica adds, thoughtfully.

“Absolutely _not_ ,” Wyatt repeats.

“Come on, he saved my life, if he dies—”

“Oh, he won’t,” Wyatt says, urgently. “Right, man? No dying today, right? Seriously, don’t, she’ll make me do it for real.”

“I think it’s a _wonderful_ idea,” Flynn comments, and it comes out a little tired and a little slurred, but talking is a good sign, and taunting Wyatt is a _great_ sign. It’s like a regular day in the bunker, just with blood and headaches representing impending doom.

Wyatt only groans his displeasure, and Flynn weakly chuckles.

They smartly didn’t leave the Lifeboat too far out, so by the time they’ve reached it Flynn is still very much awake and looking alive enough to make it back whole. Wyatt straps him in, ordering him to shut the hell up when he tries to complain about the baby-sitting, and Jiya quickly sets the coordinates.

Jessica draws a sigh of relief as soon as they reach the twenty-first century, knowing that they’ve _made_ it, her ears buzzing as she marvels at how _light_ her head finally feels. She’s the one who moves to open the door, finding the others eagerly waiting for them, Mason providing the stairs.

There isn’t room for three to go down together, so Wyatt and Flynn make do on their own, Mason awkwardly hovering in front of them and probably hoping that they won’t fall and crush him.

Lucy is on them as soon as they’ve stepped foot on the ground, looking like she doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“I’m sorry—” Flynn tries, still slumped over Wyatt, but Lucy shakes her head to interrupt him.

“We’ll talk about this,” she warns. “But not now.” She pauses, smiling widely at him before stepping forward to wrap him into a hug, which is made a little awkward by poor Wyatt still standing there and looking like he’s never been so uncomfortable in his whole life.

“I’m glad you’re alright,” Lucy sighs in relief, a little smile twisting her lips.

Flynn looks down on her, seeming a little puzzled for a moment, then he smiles too, carefully wrapping his free arm around her and rubbing her back gently.

Jessica can’t help smiling too.

Rufus and Wyatt, accompanied by Lucy and Jiya, carry Flynn to the infirmary, and Jessica is left hanging back, Denise approaching her with her hand outstretched. It takes her a couple of seconds to realize that she’s asking for the gun.

Jessica gives it to her without complaining, and Denise stares for a moment, thoughtfully. Jessica holds her breath, unsure of what to expect exactly.

“This is a good first step,” Denise finally comments, only leaving Jessica time to nod, stunned, before turning around and heading for the infirmary too.


	5. Unsteady

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand here comes the last chapter! Thank you all for the support, I really appreciate it and I hope you'll enjoy this <3

When he hears knocking on the door, for a second he wonders if he spaced out and didn’t realize how much time had passed, because he could have sworn that Lucy just headed out for a shower. It only takes a moment more to realize that Lucy doesn’t really knock to begin with, and by then he’s staring at Wyatt, who’s awkwardly standing by the door with a tray of food in his hands.

“Can I, uh, can I come in?” he asks, clearing his throat. “I got food.”

“I can see that,” Garcia replies, a small grin tugging at the corners of his lips as he gestures for him to come in.

Wyatt rolls his eyes at him, but it doesn’t do much to make him look less like a kid who’s trying to find the right way to confess to getting a bad grade.

“Agent Christopher thought you might be hungry,” Wyatt adds, leaving the tray on the bedside table and vaguely gesturing to the food. “So— here.” He clenches his jaw, moving a step back as if to leave and then just resolving to shift a little on his feet.

Garcia is fairly sure that he wants to tell him something – and if he had to take a wild guess, it probably has something to do with him putting his ass on the line for his wife: someone like Wyatt is bound to feel some responsibility for that –, and if he were less of an asshole he would probably be helping the poor guy, instead of just enjoying his suffering.

But, well, Garcia has been confined to bed rest, he’s bored and still pretty damn sore, not to mention more than a little nervous because Lucy has yet to breathe a word about the fact that he left her what’s essentially a love letter after he sneaked away behind everybody’s back – he did get an earful from Denise already, though, and a thank you from Rufus –, so— misery loves company, and he _is_ an asshole.

“Make sure to thank her for me,” he says, smiling pleasantly and looking up to Wyatt.

Wyatt clenches his jaw, nodding once. “Uh, yeah—yeah, sure.” He takes another step back, going as far as actually turning around this time, only to stop on his tracks and turning back towards him – he’s ridiculous, it’s a miracle that Garcia isn’t outright laughing at him, really.

“Look,” Wyatt finally says, resolutely. “I just wanted to— I mean, Jess told us what you did, so— uh, I mean— when I asked you not to shoot her, I wasn’t trying to suggest that you should die for her or anything. That’s more of my job.”

Garcia raises his eyebrows, amused. “I assure you I wasn’t trying to make a move on your wife.”

Wyatt opens his mouth to answer, only to close it again. “No, I—” he finally manages to get out. “Jeez, that’s not what I meant.” He sighs, rubbing his face with one hand. “I’m just trying to say that you didn’t have to do that, and I’m— very grateful that you did. There. Thank you.” He exhales in relief, raising then his eyes on Garcia hesitantly, as if waiting for some kind of backlash.

Yeah, well, not even he is _that_ much of an asshole.

“You’re welcome,” Garcia simply announces. “Believe me, I was surprised by my own human decency too.”

Wyatt shifts a little on his feet, rubbing the back of his neck. “That was a little more than human decency,” he mumbles. Before he can get an answer, though, he adds: “ _So_ , uh, need anything else?”

Garcia decides to allow the change of subject, particularly because he isn’t sure what to make of the sentiment.

“No, all’s good. You’re free to go.”

Wyatt gives a brief nod, hesitating for a moment before taking a step back and muttering some sort of goodbye. He’s so quick to head out the door that he almost collides against Lucy, who apparently came right back to him without even bothering to dry her hair.

“Oh, hi,” she says, nervously. The smile she comes up with seems a little strained, but that’s unsurprising: with Jessica back in the picture, things are probably as tense as they were before.

Looking at Lucy, he feels a little guilty for encouraging Jessica to come back – perhaps irrationally so, because she deserves much better than this, she deserves someone who looks at her and knows that she’s worth forsaking all others.

“Hi,” Wyatt greets, uncomfortably. “I was just— getting out,” he explains, vaguely gesturing towards the corridor.

“Yeah, yeah, go ahead,” she quickly replies, moving out of the way and slipping into the room.

As soon as Wyatt is out of earshot, Lucy raises her eyebrows at him, moving forward to occupy the chair next to his bed. “What was he doing here?”

“He brought me food,” he announces, grinning. “ _And_ he wanted to thank me for my service.”

“Oh,” Lucy mumbles, clearly surprised. “That’s nice,” she adds, thoughtfully, glancing to the door with a weird expression on her face. He doesn’t know how he exactly he is supposed to read it, but it makes his stomach twist unpleasantly nonetheless.

“You’ll get a cold like that,” he points out, gesturing to her wet hair.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll—I’ll dry it in a minute.” She pauses, taking a sharp breath, her expression serious as she straightens her back, her hands on her tights. “I thought we should talk.”

Ah, there it is. It was bound to happen, sooner or later.

He should have known that if he was allowed to have fun with Wyatt’s embarrassment he’d end up paying for it later.

“Of course,” he says, calmly, because it’s not like he can leap out of bed and run to hide in the bathroom or something, right? “What about?”

Lucy gives him an unamused look. “About _this_ ,” she replies, and much to his horror she takes out the letter he left to her, in case he didn’t make it back to 1848 after his trip to Chinatown. He isn’t sure what his exact words were, but he knows that they are incriminating.

And by ‘incriminating’ he means that they brought to light things that Lucy shouldn’t have to deal with and that it was probably a mistake to lay on her regardless of whether he survived the rescue mission or not.

Now he can only try to do some damage control.

“Yeah, that,” he mumbles, passing his hand over his mouth as he inhales sharply. “I’d like to apologize for that,” he quickly gets in, as she crosses her arms and eyes him warily. “I’m—I’m awfully sorry to have laid that on you.”

“You’d better be sorry,” Lucy replies, the letter still in her hand. He was expecting it, but it still stings. “I mean— seriously? _How_ could you think that going alone was a good idea?”

He frowns a little, taken aback by the change of subject. “We couldn’t just all go,” he says, defensively.

“You could at least have brought _someone_ with you,” she counters, angrily. “You could have _told_ us—me.” She pauses, swallowing heavy. He could swear that her eyes are getting shiny, but it might just be irritation after the shower. “You should have told me,” she repeats quietly.

“I’m—”

“Sorry, yes,” she interrupts, sharply. “You still did this to me.” She takes a deep breath, drumming her fingers against her arm.

Garcia feels so damn _stupid_. He never should have written that letter. She came to him because he was ‘easy to talk to’, and he was content offering her his shoulder when she needed it and his friendship in the midst of Wyatt’s relationship drama, why did he have to ruin everything? How can she ever again feel like things are simple with him after he laid everything out like that?

“I know it’s unfair,” he can only say, quietly, unable to look at her in the eye.

She snorts.

“Look,” he quickly says. “I can’t take any of that back, not really. You _are_ that important to me, I—” He pauses, unsure of what it is that he’s trying to say. “But that doesn’t mean that I ever expected you to return my feelings, alright? And I don’t expect anything to change, I just want to be here for you—”

“Wait, wait, hold up,” Lucy quickly interrupts, holding up one hand as if to physically stop his words from coming out, because apparently none of the things he’s saying are making it any better.

He promptly shuts up.

“You think I’m mad because you—” She hesitates. “Because you _care_ about me?” she completes, disbelievingly.

He blinks. “Aren’t you?”

Lucy scoffs, bumping her back against the chair and hiding her face behind her hands for a moment. “Oh my god— _no_ , I can’t _believe_ — no.” She sobers up, meeting his eyes before continuing. “I am _mad_ because you tried to take yourself out of the picture. And you did that while telling me all about how it’s all for the best, and you’re expendable, and you just want me to be _happy_ and apparently going on a suicidal mission was _instrumental_ to that.” She takes a sharp breath. “I’m _mad_ because you decided that leaving me would make me happy and you didn’t even ask what _I_ wanted, which makes me _want_ to punch you.”

He stares. And stares, and stares, and stares.

_That’s_ what she’s mad about?

“I— didn’t mean to upset you,” is the best that he manages to come up with. Honestly, he feels like she just spun him around and he’s having an hard time regaining his balance.

“You did,” she highlights, mercilessly. “And—and don’t get me wrong, I’m happy we have Rufus back, and everything eventually worked out, but— do you have _any_ idea what it felt like to find this letter?”

He clenches his jaw, shaking his head slightly. “I just never thought there was a chance of you— feeling the same. That’s all,” he tries to explain, and her expression seems to soften a little.

She’s still edging towards fear, but she offers a small smile, and after a moment of hesitation she leans forward, her fingers slowly sliding closer to his, so that they are touching.

“Listen,” she says, slowly. “I can’t say— I honestly can’t tell you that I’m ready to jump into this. I mean, the last time I did it went— poorly.” She pauses, keeping her eyes down as she tries to come up with the following words. “But— if you could kindly stop assuming that my happiness doesn’t require you not _dying_ on me—” she continues, raising her eyes on him to give him a reprimanding look. He’s pretty sure that he looks like a deer stuck in front of headlights right now. “If we take it slow— I would like a chance at this. At us.”

He’s gaping like a moron. He should probably say something.

The good news is that the dumb expression on his face makes Lucy smile in amusement.

“Is that a yes?” she asks, jokingly, although he can see that she’s nervous.

_Say something_.

“Uh, I—”

_Say something coherent_.

He clears his throat. “I’m not going anywhere,” he finally gets out, and he isn’t sure if it’s just him or if his voice sounds weird. “We have all the time you need.” Lucy’s smile is blinding, and there’s about an 80% chance that he’s about to wake up and find out that he’s having some crazy, drugs-induced dream. “—and then some. We do have a time machine,” he adds, jokingly, before he can stop himself.

Lucy snorts, amused, hiding her grin behind her hand as she shakes her head slightly, her eyes fixed on him.

“Alright,” she smiles, licking her lips as she gets ready to stand up. “I probably should go dry my hair now.”

“Uh, yeah—yeah,” he quickly answers, probably going a little over the top with the nonchalance. It would help if there wasn’t a small population of elves dancing in his stomach. “Go ahead, I’ll— be here.”

Lucy smiles at him once again, even more brightly than before, and he even manages to reciprocate in reasonable time instead of just staring like a creep.

As soon as she’s gone, he childishly tries to pinch his arm. When he doesn’t wake up, he can’t help feeling a little relieved.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including: 
> 
>   * Short comments
>   * Long comments
>   * Questions
>   * “<3” as extra kudos
>   * Reader-reader interaction
> 

> 
> If you don’t want a reply, for any reason, feel free to sign your comment with “whisper” and I will appreciate it but not respond!


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